Artistic Creators Don’t Need to be Understood by Other People

Does anyone truly understand anyone else?

Everyone is creative in their own way. Creativity is tied to curiosity, and while it’s not always artistic, per se, it’s there. Everyone everywhere has creative abilities within them.

This takes all sorts of forms. Some involve creating order, and those people are analysts, scientists, project managers, and the like. Their creativity involves making sense of things, ordering chaos, and other seemingly mundane things that not everyone has the skills to work with.

Creativity is seen in teachers, parents, guides, and the like. There is no One True Way to raise a child. Variables exist between cultures, societies, backgrounds, and more. Raising children requires creativity. Likewise, there’s no One True Way to teach people. Some learn via reading, some via doing, others via a hybrid of both, and still others by different available means.

Creativity exists in every element of society, every job, every individual. Artistic creators are a separate category for several reasons.

Artistic creators often spin reality out of thin air. They have visions in the unseen of imagined worlds, pictures, places, and unique stories that don’t exist yet (or might derive from an existing idea but from a unique perspective). These they bring to the canvas, page, screen, and the like, via whatever medium they work in.

Like all forms of creators, there are professionals and hobbyists creating art. For the hobbyist, it’s often a fun release in opposition to stresses and similar negatives. For the professional, it’s their vocation, and creating their art is how they earn a living.

Artistic creators often stand against the status quo and face a world that tends not to understand them. The question is, do they need to be understood?

Nobody but you can be you

The truth is, every single human being on Planet Earth is understood by only 1 person. Themselves.

This is because every single one of us is the only one in our head, heart, and soul. There is nobody else who can get into your thoughts and feelings, have your memories, and codify your beliefs and values as you do.

Sure, there are similarities among people. Yet even identical twins are wholly unique in their heads, hearts, and souls.

Understanding, as such, is always going to be purely surface. Even the deepest understanding of anything you have towards any living being is limited because you are not them. Likewise, their understanding of you is limited because they are not you.

Artistic creators tend to think outside boxes, take angles of approach perpendicular to almost everyone else, and see color, light, and other notions in a way nobody else does. They tend to step outside of groupthink and the collective consciousness because their creativity is based on differences and is frequently about bringing something new and/or different to the world.

Choosing to be a professional artistic creator often means choosing to not be understood by the masses.

I’ve been writing fiction since I was 9 years old. While I have many finished works that will never be seen by anyone else, I’ve also been published in two anthologies and have self-published more than a dozen novels.

My primary vocation is as a writer. This is why I’m in the process of having a new sci-fi novel edited, am doing my own edits to another in the same series, and am writing a wholly new novel in a separate sci-fi universe. I have 4 more novels plotted in a previous series, and am working on a couple of other concepts that will likely turn into books down the line, too.

Someone recently asked me how I keep it all straight. There are characters, scenes, technologies, worlds, and more in my head that are diverse, often exist completely apart from one another, and are just as real to me as the keys beneath my fingers and the screen before my eyes. Yet my brain catalogs, categorizes, and differentiates them all in ways I can’t always convey.

Hence, many don’t understand me. I also know other artistic creators in different boats but on the same seas who face the same general lack of understanding.

The truth is that it doesn’t matter. You don’t need to understand me. Just like I don’t need to understand you.

Appealing to the masses to buy and read my books isn’t a matter of understanding and being understood, at least not on a personal level. That’s why insufficient sales, and insufficient readers aren’t personal. It has nothing to do with being understood as a person.

Yet that lack of understanding can be incredibly frustrating.

What can artistic creators do to work with this?

The main thing to do is not let the opinions of others dominate your choices and stop you from being a creator.

Artistic creators often work in a way others can’t fathom. Or, even if they can, they lack a total understanding of the artistic creator. However, it’s human nature to make connections and be part of the tribe.

Thus, one thing artistic creators can do is find their tribe. To that end, I’ve joined a local writer’s group and signed onto several online social media communities with other authors.

The other thing we can do is to become as comfortable as we can in our own skin. Or, more specifically, in our own heads, hearts, and souls. The best way to do that is via active conscious awareness – i.e., mindfulness.

To be actively consciously aware, all you need to do is be present, here and now, and ask yourself what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what your intentions are, what you are or aren’t doing, and if your approach is positive or negative. Those questions and their answers will tell you who, what, where, how, and why you are, here and now.

Artistic creation often is like the unconscious mind. It’s just something you do, like breathing. Yet artistic creators are people, too, and have the same needs to make connections and find understanding. Often, that begins with ourselves.

Kindness, compassion, and empathy

I know I don’t think like anyone else. Also, I know how I approach my life is not how anyone else does. To better understand myself, I’m actively working to be more kind, compassionate, and empathetic towards myself. Just as I work to be towards others.

The world needs art and artists. Without artistic creators, the amazing aspects of the reality we know today wouldn’t be what they are. To get more of that for the future, artistic creators don’t need to be understood. We just need to be accepted, encouraged, and supported in our creative endeavors. Kindness, compassion, and empathy – given and received – are a spark artistic creators can use to our advantage.

Thanks for reading. As I share my creative journey with you, I conclude with this: How are you inspired to be your own creator – whatever form that takes?

Please take a moment to check out the collection of my published works, which can be found here.

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